


Outnumbered

by OpalEmpress



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Children of Characters, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Married Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 18:42:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30043068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpalEmpress/pseuds/OpalEmpress
Relationships: Malavai Quinn/Female Sith Warrior, Malavai Quinn/Sith Warrior
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	Outnumbered

Persefeni rubbed her forehead, fruitlessly trying to push back her building headache. An hour ago, things had been moving smoothly, everything according to plan. But now—now she was deep in the wilds of Odessen, alone, with a clock running down.

A rustle came from her left, and she reached to her side a second before feeling the pulse of her husband—steady and sure, with hints of petrichor and freshly pressed cloth.

“Any luck, Quinn?” her voice wasn’t as steady as she thought it would be, and from the look on his face, he shared similar fears.

“None. Has Vette contacted you?”

“No, nothing yet,” Persefeni took a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth, the little droid at her shoulder buzzing in assistance.

“I found him!”

A child’s voice, tinged with pride and glee, suddenly rang out, far too their right, and Persefeni and Quinn shared a look of mixed relief, amusement and annoyance before shoving through the brush, following the voice.

The source was easily identified—his hair matched hers after all, golden and sparkling in the morning light, and not easily hidden within a forest. His back was straight and shoulders square, posture better than half of the soldiers on Odessen , finger pointed as high as he could get it following a huge, gnarled tree trunk.

Persefeni knelt next to him, resisting the urge to scoop him up from the ground—he was too big for that now, as he had reminded her last time, “Artemis, you are supposed to be back at the base with Pierce. What do you think you are doing?”

Of course he had snuck away-- Artemis had watched her soldiers and scouts from his father’s side or her lap since he was born, was growing up with Mandalorians teaching him how to hunt and track through terrain, and he knew Odessan as well as any of them. But usually, Pierce’s black ops training could be employed to track the seven-year-old down. If Artemis had learned to evade him already, that spelled nothing but trouble for all of the Alliance.

But he did not scamper away, or act as though they had caught him with his hand in the cookie jar, “I found him, Mama,” her oldest son insisted, “He’s up there, see?”

A giggle emerged from within the branches, and Persefeni sighed in relief, even though her teeth gritted down as her abdomen seized with familiar pain. The droid next to her buzzed worriedly, and Malavai took her hand, helping her back up.

“Catch your breath, my love,” he said, tucking an errant curl behind her ear, before calling out louder, “Fenrir! How did you get up there?”

A mussed and wild haired black head popped back up from within the depths of the tree, “Da, I found a nest! There’s lots of feathers and stuff!”

“That’s deeply fascinating, Fenrir. But the shuttle is leaving soon, and we need to be on it. The nest will be here when we return, and perhaps its owners will be here, too.”

Her child pouted, “I don’t wanna.”

“Fenrir, we have less than thirty minutes before we need to be en route. Please come down.”

“Arty said Mama can make the shuttle wait for us.”

Persefeni cocked an eyebrow and looked down at her oldest son, who purposefully stared off in the opposite direction, “I’m quite sure he did. But that would inconvenience many people, and Aunt Sikore and Uncle Theron would be forced to wait for us. Don’t you want to go to the beach?”

Fenrir’s head popped back up, somehow even messier looking than before, the twigs in his curls multiplying steadily, “Does Auntie Sikore still have Speedy?”

“I’m sure Speedy is still there,” said Quinn, his mouth twitching at the edges, as he brushed his thumb over her knuckles gently, “Now, Fenrir, I’m afraid if you don’t comply with our wishes, there will be no more Kaasi chocolates for you.”

Their son weighed the threat against his desire to remain among the branches for a long moment before scrambling out of the tree and back down to the ground, and Malavai scooped him up, plucking a few of the leaves out of his hair, though it hardly made a difference.

“Can I have a chocolate now?”

“You may both have one once we’re on the shuttle,” said Persefeni, signaling for their speeder bikes, “With luck, we’ll make it back to the launch pad before Koth gets too antsy at the helm.”

The trip was not so bad on speeders, with Fenrir secured to Quinn’s back, and Artemis in between her arms. The shuttle had waited for them—of course it had—and no sooner than the children were buckled into seats than Fenrir was asleep, mouth open wide and head lolling, with Artemis soon following suit as the ship left Odessen’s upper atmosphere.

Persefeni smiled, finally relaxing and reaching for a Kaasi chocolate herself. The taste of it carried melancholy and regret, even as it carried joy and warmth. But she could stand eat them again. As she chewed, her thoughts drifted back, to a world that no longer was, in more ways than one, to brown eyes more wild than hers, to calloused fingers more clever than hers.

_Will they have a similar story one day?_ she thought idly.

It was not an uncommon thought, this, but it was never welcome. Because even now, she could feel Fenrir pulsing through the Force as he dreamed, vivid greens and bright yellows and neon pinks, but Artemis never had. Artemis was already identifying patterns in data streams with his father and Uncle Theron, while Fenrir’s attention could barely be held through a meal, let alone a meditation session with Sana-Rae.

But the galaxy was more complicated now— _she_ had made it more complicated, in many ways. Her sons had no clear place in it anymore—in some ways, no one did. Her feet began to trace a familiar path up and down the cabin of the small ship as her mind wandered further.

Fenrir would be no Jedi, and yet she could not picture him a Sith, his father’s eyes gone and replaced with the gold that would match her own, or worse, the crimson that matched her mother’s. She could never allow him to be taken to Korriban to be chipped away, carved into, chiseled down and shaped into a weapon like so many others, and yet, where else would prepare him as well for how harsh the galaxy could be, how many responsibilities he would inherit, whether he wanted them or not? Artemis’ path would have been simple—rising through the ranks of the Imperial military, with the political power of his grandmother’s legacy and his razor-sharp cleverness. He could have even been Sith Intelligence. But now, would he fill his father’s shoes one day, and find contentment in it, or would he grow resentful of them, believing he was overshadowed and unloved?

Gentle arms wrapped around her waist, and she started for a moment, then leaned back into Quinn, closing her eyes. Her thoughts had consumed more of her consciousness than she had realized.

“You should rest, my lord. You know how… _excitable_ the clans tend to be, and with Vette and Gault there as well, I don’t think we’ll have a quiet reception.”

Persefeni smiled, kissing the back of his hand, “Only if you do, too. You’ve been sleeping less than I have recently.”

“A terrible exaggeration,” she could hear the smile in his voice, and it lifted her heart. “What were you thinking about, my love?”

She sighed—once upon a time, she would have hidden her thoughts from him, believing they made her appear weak. But now, she said simply, “The future, again. For us, for them. All of them.”

Malavai’s hands gently caressed her stomach, just barely beginning to grow for the third time, and she felt his understanding and similar feelings without him having to speak them aloud, “I don’t remember you being so worried with the first two.”

She chuckled quietly, turning to face him. Quinn was as handsome as he had ever been, if not more so, with the streaks of silver that traced his temples, and she traced his jaw with a finger as he wrapped his arms around her again, “Major, we are soon to be outnumbered by the enemy. Surely, your strategic mind understands why I might find the situation... stressful.”

Quinn beamed at her, eyes glowing in a way that she had seen so rarely before they had been reunited, and so often now, “Well, my lord, I am your strategic advisor. And I have full confidence in your abilities. We’ll assess the situation, develop the best approach, deploy it, and adjust as necessary.”

“Ever the soldier,” she teased, placing a small kiss on his cheek, and relishing the pink flush that still came.

“As for the res t of it… we can only try our best. That is all any of us can do.”

“ _Three_ children, Malavai… we’re going to have three of them. Artemis is already too clever for his own good, Fenrir gives me more anxiety than even Arcann did, and who knows what the third little monster will do to us?”

“We will never get a full night’s sleep again,” said Quinn.

She laughed quietly, “Did we ever have that?”

“I’m sure we did, at least once. But I will admit I don’t remember, either. Now, come take seat, my love.”

Persefeni smiled and allowed her husband to lead her to the comfortable bench attached to the far wall, tucking her head onto his shoulder as they sat down, and the shuttle made the jump to hyperspace.


End file.
